The Smile of Anubis Read online

wings and singing songs in the unknown language, but every time I was grateful and relieved to go back to reality. This temptation was much worse. A moan shoot through my head: let go! But I stubbornly clenched my hands and teeth harder and kept pulling. My hair withstood, I did too, and we emerged out of the mirage.

  Finishing the cold tea, I took my favorite book in my hands. At the very end of it, there was a little girl, fiercely fighting with the long sleeves of her holiday dress that firmly bound her arms, as though by chains. A phone was persistently ringing on the table. She had to answer. It was the tradition: the first step was for one of the families to propose the terms of an alliance, then call after a set amount of time. In case a second clan wanted to accept the offer, the youngest child was to pick up the phone and invite new friends to their house on behalf of the patriarch. If the call was left unanswered, the alliance was rejected and the war was to start.

  The house was decorated, the table set, the phone was ringing and the prickly stare of her father was poking her in the back. The cunning sleeves were prevailing, but finally the girl broke free from the constraint of the ritual solemnity; she threw her hand forward and grasped the silence.

  The girl stood there daring not to turn around and knowing not what scared her most: to see anger or disappointment on her father’s stern face that she loved so much.

  I felt for the girl. No, even more - I was there with her: standing near and trying to hold her wet tiny palm, wanting to touch and comfort, hug and teach her how to cry; and same as her, more than anything I was scared to turn back.

  Many times I have read this story, but never to the end. And again I didn’t let myself learn what happened next either: whether both families got killed in the pointless bloodshed, whether the girl’s father patted her on her head, called their allies back and they all laughed at this silly situation later, whether…

  For me this girl froze in her dither and fear forever. I have been dreaming about her - a half-mad girl roaming in the crannies of her subconscious, searching for the bits of courage so she could stay alive.

  But what if this girl was me?

  2

  I was walking along the sea knee-deep in the water. Playful waves were attacking me and trying to drag me away with them into the deep. There were no big city lights here. The night was as black as before electricity was discovered. And at the same time, the stars were so close that I felt like the shining dots would hide in my fist, should I lift my hand up a bit.

  While I was moving across the space, I felt like time was striding through me. Backwards. Sparks of the past fuzzing away with every step, were competing with stars to illuminate my way.

  At forty-three I bought a house at the lake, as I had always wanted. Furnished it tastefully. Slowly unpacked my things. Chose the biggest cable package. Put a TV in every room. They were big and small, some even in frames like photos. But it didn’t help me to revive the air in the house, nor to drive away the chilly silence.

  At thirty-six I was walking down the street, shameless, slightly touching the beauty around with my eyes. A smile to the right, a nod to the left, while you were at home, crumbling in fissures of disappointment. Will you ever forgive me? Because I forgave. Myself. Being angry with fools took too much energy. Ic wish I could scrape enough to powder the emptiness inside with love someday.

  At thirty-two I was soaring and whirling, besotted, in love, devouring each and every day, tearing it to its mellow parts. Life was running down my fingers, I was shaking it off to the floor and spread sticky dirt around the Earth with my coarse boots. I was happy. And you? I had not really seen your happiness being blinded with mine. Please, forgive me.

  At twenty-five life was crumbling around me, as if I was not there at all. I was howling and moaning, and pitying myself with all my might. I was lulling my conscience with stories so sad. I was sick. But I got better and met you. Then I learned I was only seemingly healthy. And my sickness came back when I stepped on the right-not right path.

  At nineteen I considered life to be pointless. I was thrashing on the outside looking for it, but haven’t found. Never looked inside myself. Alas!

  At thirteen I was smart, I was strong, I was fearless – a warrior! Having no understanding, I ran, knowing not where to: “I will gain, I will be, and I will solve all the mysteries! I will save, I will change…everyone dies, but not me”.

  I was eight when I saw this boy with his hands stuck to the window, greedily looking into the semidarkness of my father’s small shop. The boy was thin and tattered, - probably orphan. Our shop was decorated for Christmas and whiffed like a fairy tale. I was standing inside watching the boy, invisible in all those festive lights.

  But what if, this boy, peeping into the windows of someone else’s lives was me?

  3

  I rearranged my neatly done grey curls automatically and carefully landed on the edge of my usual bench. It was important not to get too comfortable. And there were two reasons for that. The first one was that in such cases a gentleman would soon appear, an elderly one or not so experienced, but always fine-looking, and try having the most boring talk about his young days. Secondly, by sitting like this I never let myself forget that I am here for a short while only. A hard wooden seat eagerly dug into my shrunken buttocks, preventing me from dissolving into the miracle around me by waspishly reminding me about my totally wonderless reality.

  I was seventy-five, but people thought I was not more than sixty. Yet I saw every day that I lived in the merciless mirror. Those years, that evaded the eyes of the others, were hiding in my eyes and in the barely noticeable tremor of my long fingers. They could not tuck away from me though.

  I inhaled deeply until my skin crept, clearing my mind and started doing what I came for – absorbing the holiday that made its home here, at the same time vivifying the ghosts my life was full of.

  The city park that took over the large hill was flowing down to the embankment from one side and making a sharp dive to the amusement park from the other. My crow’s nest was right in the middle of the latter.

  I turned my head left, where a bright dome of the mini circus was sprawled. Acrobats had been giving regular performances there two seasons in a row. And Serge stood before me in all his gloss and splendor. Amazingly handsome in his elegant suit and shiny shoes, he reached out his hand covered with a white glove, inviting me to dance. A waltz started playing somewhere in the distance. I almost gave him my hand too, but then pulled it back and shook my head. No. It was not a time for dancing: “Please, step aside, dear Serge. It is not your day today”.

  I moved my eyes to the right, to where the line of omnifarious tents was broken with a blood-sun stain of a magician trailer, and Paul stepped out of coal-black shadows. Graceless, short, tastelessly dressed and oblivious, he was the love of my life. He never got to know it, being rapt with the immense expanse of his outstanding mind. My heart stopped aching some time ago, what remained was a light cloud of melancholy and regret. And sometimes something would move in my stomach. But the moment I stayed still and tried to listen, it faded.

  For a couple of seconds we looked into each other’s eyes, but the moment I lifted my hand to greet him, he disappeared. Well, I have come not for him anyway.

  I turned a little bit more to the right to have a better view of the antique caramel carousel. Why caramel? Because of its color and form. It looked like a sister to a gingerbread house. I wanted to come closer and have a bite, or at least lick it to see if it was true. But I did not dare.

  It was late. There were only a few kids on the carousel. And among laughter, colorful lights, loud music, and perpetual motion, I saw a girl. Bright red, like the tail of the fiery mare – Dawn, fresh like a first snowdrop, wearing a yellow dress with flounces and cozy jumper. She was laughing, with her head thrown back, holding to the mane of the rainbow horse, taking her far-far away, which is not so far in reality. She was a beautiful adult there, loving and loved, easily flittering around and s
inging the song of happiness.

  I waited till the carousel stopped, the girl came down from it and the horse danced alone into this faerie place. And the girl?

  The girl stood up from the rigid bench, rearranged her grey curls with a habitual gesture and slowly went to where no one was waiting for her - home.

  4

  We live by fusing with the outside,

  We die by losing ourselves.

  We reach the ever strangest places

  While searching for a piece of sense.

  We spatter souls in vain, we swear

  It never-ever crossed our minds

  That anger, laziness and lucre

  Would leave forever stains that blinds.

  We brake against the inner illwill,

  We give away to judge us rights,

  We’re shatters, pieces, scraps and smithers

  Of kids, who had no mirror-frights.

  The Land of the Red Dust

  1

  There seemed to be no end to funerals. White vertical flags were running high here and there. And the music, the incessant terrible music, which made him wanted to die himself, howled and clanked all over the area since even before the dawn until the very night.

  Something strange was happening. For all his life he had never observed such a number of successive funerals. He was starting to feel uncomfortable. Even the sun, sensing something